The only reason I see for ditchiing winamp would be an internal player capable of audio/video the whole shabang... since guino has said over and over that that isnt his intention, and that a substantial amount of coding would be required...

winamp 2.95 runs rocksolid since day one... no reason to change winamp to wmp imo... and the cdrip in wmp rips only to wma afaik which is pretty useless... + cdrip for RR is already developed! + wmp cdrip doesnt use freedb...

WMP can rip to mp3, you just need to buy a 3rd party app to do it. its not a free option but its possible. I'm for WMP, before I was playing with all these front ends, RR specifically, I was using CarAMP in my BMW, they use WMP to play audio and the program is built on a .NET framework. The only problem I has with WMP is the winamp blows it away in the visuals dept.

Winamp is been giving a lot of people a bad day with it's (bug)updates and crashes. But i havenít had that problem yet.

I Think an integration with Mediaplayer will give a better RR. But that off course depends on the programmer. As i have full confidence in Guino I guess it will be great.

But my reason for the choice of Mediaplayer is just because in normal live i listen to a lot of music and work in big sound studio's. They will never use winamp. Just because mediaplayer is more stable and produces better overall results in quality and system load. And in mediaplayer in studio's i mean the dll that is being used in the software, you will not get the interface of media player.

So just my thoughts would be : mediaplayer integration.
But that is just a gut feeling. We will not know if it's better until we can test it.

id say stick with winamp, i dont have a single problem using winamp 5.08e, and it does kick the pants off wmp. what versions of winamp have you tried, because i do know that 5.03 i had lots of trouble with on its own when it came out. try a different version, and dont give up on it when one version doesnt work, thats why they release newer ones. try 2.95, if you want the extra features of winamp, go 5.08e.

Well the thing i hate about winamp is that it is not integrated but just remote controlled. Winamp gets started next to Road Runner. If you don't have the right skin and settings you'll see winamp and vis wil not show up, etc etc.

Don't get me wrong because i love roadrunner and i use it however it is.

But a good piece of software would not start an extra program at the side for playing its sound/movie. It will integrate it.
But hey, RoadRunner works for me. Maybee someday it will integrated its audio/movioe control and we are all happy with the new introduced bugs that will come with that.
But i would like it to be done.

One has to consider the future. How long will winamp (especially an ancient version) work when the OS keeps evolving. Already many programs written for 98 will no longer function or are incompatible with newer versions of directx or other windows drivers or dll's.

We are living on borrowed time. There may come a point when a change to the OS will render winamp inoperative completely and as it is the heart and sould of RR. RR becomes useless except on antiquated systems.

Think about it. Guino is integrating the latest technologies, Blue tooth, Phone control, IPOD, sirius and XM, GPS, etc and the heart of the system still relies on a software application that is winamp stable 2.9? when was that version released? 4 or 5 years ago? See my point?

Our installs are on Mini ITX P4 mobos. running intel 3.02 and 2.4 ghz hyperthreaded processors 533mhz fsb. 1 gig and 512mb memory. 300gig and 100gig drive capacity. The systems do not lack processing horsepower. The systems use OPUS 150 watt power supplies that do soft shut downs automatically when the vehicle is turned off. Suspend or Hibernate mode is disabled on both systems.

Also you sooner or later have to consider product support. Guino I am certain is well aware of this. He gives terrific support. But who out there is giveing any substantial support for winamp????? The product has fallen down by the road and can't get up. Even now people have to ask for the link to get the, wink, wink "OLD VERSION".

Microsoft Media Player on the other hand is not going away or being unsupported anytime soon. Especially with the release of Windows Media Center.

No one is demanding for Media Player integration by tommorow. But I think that some serious thought be given to it. What additional work it would take to code RR for media player will ultimately be returned by not having to update and write hooks for every new media application directly into RR as it is already a part of media player or will have plugins written for it by microsoft or third party vendors.

CD rip is no longer a external app, Video and DVD playback are no longer seperate apps, pretty soon if not already media player will compete with Itunes so IPOD connection will be a no brainer also integrated into media player. How long before Media Player becomes the interface to your cell phone or other communication device.

The point I am trying to make is that Winamp has no future. And by extension any front end built around it has none as well. And I like RR better than all the rest. Even the $400 a copy IMOBILE Executive crap. Yeah we bought it and hated it from the begining.

I am running an old slot 1 MB with a celeron 300a (from the dawn of time based on currently available hardware). I am not at all concerned about having the latest and greatest hardware or drivers. I am running XP pro because it is easy to install and does what I want. I do not rip mp3s or watch movie files of any format. It is a car install, I load music from my desktop and play music while I drive.

I am not at all concerned about upgrading any aspect of my system. Why would I?

I chose for RR because it uses winamp. Before I used Frodoplayer, but FP uses WMP, and it WMP didn't run smooth on my Epia M10K. Most car PC's aren't high end PC's because of the power they consume and the money they cost. So plz stay with winamp.